Thread by @WilliamYang120

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office at 10 Downing Street on Thursday afternoon, waving #Ukraine's flags and demanding more stringent sanctions and broader action from Britain in response to Russia’s military action.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/wor…

“I’m shocked, probably like everyone, because my family is still in Ukraine,” said Mariya Tymchyshyn, 30, who took off work to join the protests in London. “We were panicked as well, we don’t know what to do. No one can be ready for this.”

“It’s probably the hardest part for us, I was trying to calm down my grandmother, but she remembers being a child at that time and a bomb killed her mother,” Ms. Tymchyshyn said. “I want peace for all of us.”

Yulia Tomashckuk, 29, wore sunglasses to shield her tears as she held a Ukrainian flag. A neighboring town to her hometown was attacked on Thursday, she said.

“I just felt I was useless sitting at home watching the news, here at least I can show there are people who support Ukraine, who are against war and who want Putin to be shown his place,” she said, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. “He needs to be stopped now.”

"Elsewhere in Europe, hundreds of demonstrators gathered on the Pariser Platz in Berlin on Thursday morning, directly in front of the American Embassy and the Brandenburg Gate."

"In Madrid, a small group of protesters, some in tears, gathered outside the Russian Embassy to demand an end to the invasion. They waved Ukrainian flags and shouted “terrorists” and other slogans."

“There’s so much emotion,” said Valeria Skubrii, a 25-year-old Ukrainian sommelier in Paris, as the crowd behind her burst into the Ukrainian national anthem.

"Meanwhile, The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that its forces had destroyed more than 70 military targets in #Ukraine, including 11 airfields, three command points and a naval base."

"Russian forces also downed one helicopter and four Bayraktar TB2 drones, said Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the ministry’s spokesman, speaking from Moscow. He said that Russia had lost one fighter jet because of a 'piloting error.'"

"In #Ukraine, by late afternoon, it was as if you could feel the center of gravity in Ukraine shifting. In conversations with dozens of people, there was one common theme: trying to help friends and family move west."

"To Lviv, but also to smaller towns and villages close to the European Union and countries including Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. And there was another common theme: people were stuck."

"Trains were either not running or packed. Roads were jammed. There were reports of intense fighting across the country, and no one was sure what the night would bring."

“It wasn’t pleasant to hear that sound, of the air raid sirens,” Ms. Mozyl, 28, said from the western city of Lviv in #Ukraine. But now, she said, she felt relaxed, and she had to work. “Unfortunately,” she said, “I cannot stop working, or else I would not get paid.”

"A mass migration appeared to be underway in Kyiv on Thursday as people fled the Ukrainian capital for parts of the country they thought might be safer after a Russian military assault began." nytimes.com/live/2022/02/2…

"Lines formed at bank machines, and frantic shoppers emptied grocery store shelves in a number of neighborhoods. Some hauled shopping bags, suitcases, cat carriers and dogs and children in tow, as they poured into Kyiv’s main bus station, ...

... overflowed onto its sidewalks and surrounded open bus doors to push against drivers trying to control the flow of the crowds."

"Roman Timofeyev, who was standing with four friends in Kyiv’s main bus station and trying to get on a bus, said he was trying to reach Lviv and then Poland.

He said he had packed clothes, documents and medicine for the trip. At first, he said, he didn’t think he would leave, but then “it was too unexpected to hear the explosions near the houses, so we are afraid.”

His friend, Nastya Oleinik, said, “We didn’t sleep all night.”

He and his friends planned to go to Turkey for a few weeks to wait out whatever might happen.

“Wait for the end of war, and then come back,” he said.

"A young man in gray sweatpants and black hat sat looking stunned on a small black duffle bag next to a long line of prospective bus passengers. He said he was waiting for a bus west."

“Horrible,” said the man, who gave only his first name, Alexander, and said he was 18. “Our people, our military are now dying in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and it’s horrible. Tanks from Belarus started to attack us. So I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”